


I Know You

by hunenka



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, Gen, Hell, Internal Monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:59:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunenka/pseuds/hunenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In <i>On the Head of a Pin</i>, Alastair waits in his cell while Dean talks to the angels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know You

**I Know You**  
by hunenka  
Fandom: Supernatural  
Pairing(s): none  
Rating: general audiences  
Warnings: none  
Summary: In _On the Head of a Pin_ , Alastair waits in his cell while Dean talks to the angels.

===

Alastair felt something akin to excitement when he first saw Dean’s face in the tiny window in the door of his cell. He’d really missed his most promising pupil.

They stared at each other for a moment that felt like eternity, and even without words, they managed to say so much that you could write books about it. Then Dean lowered his gaze, hiding those expressive green eyes under thick eyelashes, and walked away, out of Alastair’s sight. To talk to the angels, surely.

Alastair allowed himself a small, amused smile. He could imagine the scene perfectly – Uriel as the bad cop, Castiel as the good cop... And both angels telling Dean what he must do, insisting that he _must_ do it, that the entire world’s existence depends on it. Castiel might even show some regret, say that they wouldn’t have asked this of Dean if there was any other way.

But there really was no other way. The angels needed Dean to torture Alastair in order to learn the identity of a force so powerful to be able to kill angels so easily.

And Alastair knew Dean well; he knew what his answer would be. He knew the man intimately, knew him inside out, quite literally. It happens when you spend forty years with someone, if you take him apart bit after bit, break him and reshape him into something new, a creature of your our making.

Dean might be in one piece and not in Hell anymore, but Alastair knew the man was still hanging by a thread, holding onto those pitiful last shreds of humanity he had left in him. Trying so hard to make himself forget what he’d been doing in Hell for the past ten years and how he had loved it. Trying to redeem himself, to make himself worthy of the rescue that came from Heaven.

He’d just started learning how to be human again, building himself up one piece after another. Picking up the blade and torturing Alastair would bring all that effort to naught. It would tear down all those walls Dean had built in order to separate himself from what he’d become in Hell. All the pieces he’d carefully put together would shatter again.

Alastair knew Dean. He knew him better than anyone else; he spent more time with him than even Dean’s family did.

Thus Alastair knew Dean would say no to the angels, he would refuse to let himself be destroyed once again. Because Dean had learned the price of such great, self-sacrificing gestures long ago. Alastair was sure of this, and just to amuse himself, he imagined the inevitable look of defeat on Dean’s face. It always suited Dean best.

Suddenly the door to Alastair’s cell creaked open. The demon stared in surprise at Dean’s unmistakable silhouette in the doorway. Dean entered the room, slowly, pushing a covered cart in front of him. His expression was disturbingly unreadable.

Oh.

Alastair managed to hide his shock in a heartbeat, covering it with a song, but inside, he felt almost… betrayed. Cheated.

He’d thought he knew Dean, knew all of him, every one of his weaknesses: his fears and nightmares (because Alastair made them all true), his hopes and wishes (because Alastair crushed them all).

But there obviously must have been some part of Dean that Alastair had never managed to reach, and this knowledge hurt greatly, as if his heart was being ripped out.

He’d thought he had beaten all the fight and defiance out of Dean a long time ago, along with the sense of hope, loyalty, good and evil and all that nonsense that had brought Dean to Hell in the first place.

Clearly Alastair was wrong.

END


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